For regular viewers, I think Dillinger's fate was a foregone conclusion (based on Root's words but also Finch's behaviour in the post-Nathan period + the pilot). What is illuminating is how Dillinger contrasts with Reese, and how it informs who the characters are and why they turned out this way.

I wonder if they pay Amy Acker for the episodes that she doesn't appear in. But I applaud the boldness of the producers for their willingness to lock her down to make sure she's available by giving her a full time credit.

It's been almost forever since I've had the chance to watch it live and post some comments, but PoI has continued to shatter expectations. It burns through more plot lines and characters in 2-3 episodes than most shows do in an entire season. It seeks to reinvent itself at about the halfway mark every season, and this…

What's surprising is that lack of follow-up on it - it seemed like everyone was like, yeah well that's that. Wouldn't she be in danger with HR on the prowl (assuming Simmons sends more people after it - $4 million doesn't seem lke something HR would write off)

The overall case was less remarkable this week as PoI looks like it's setting up the chessboard to knock it all over. The outcome was pretty predictable for the case and felt pretty pedestrian. I loved how Fusco and Carter had to stage the crime scene for Sven, but I had a bad feeling about Laskey throughout the…

Thanks Baby Gerald. Tuesday is just a tough night for me to do comments normally plus the show is on later which doesn't help, so I can't do this as much as last season for the time being.

I'm not particularly well-versed in the world of Batman, but I'm not sure if Root would be equivalent to Joker; in the beginning, she's an opportunist and sociopath, partially shaped by events which happened to her childhood friend. Her fanatical devotion to the Machine is partly based on her sociopathic tendencies.…

Absolutely - I think it's the boundaries which the show encounters as a mass market entertainment product. Too much intricacies into the details and impact of surveillance would drag on the narrative. But the absolutes which the show presents (the data analysis is flawless, the heroes are completely selfless, etc.)…

That's an interesting question. If I may take it up to a more "meta" level, I wonder how much consideration Christopher Nolan gave to it - is the story framework for the Machine only to serve the narrative of Finch and Reese saving people, or is there more to how Finch created the Machine that underlies a much…

I think I'm one of those few people who really enjoyed season 1. I think it's a compromise for the network to do more procedural episodes to build the audience before it can deep dive in to the mythology (i.e. the FlashForward fiasco).

I like that we never get to really "hear" the Machine and that everything we know about it is effectively through side conversations or actions of the characters. The definition that we think we see is all based on our interpretation of what we see the characters do, and that only tells you what you stellar job the…

My bet on the long term is self-preservation. Vigilance is probably going to be the first direct assault on the Machine and, once the knowledge of its existence becomes public, the beginning of the war against the Machine by other factions. If the Machine is preventing these terrible things from happening, it stands…

To be fair, PoI was built on this premise so it has a leg up on other shows when they try to deal with the same premise.

I don't think Reese is any less of a superhuman in this season, but the presence of other characters like Shaw does change the perspective. Reese seems more reasonable and his actions less insane when put next to Shaw. But I think the addition of any characters would do that, i.e. like when they add new villains.

Root is effectively an avatar for the Machine in the real world. I'm not sure if there is anything that the Machine is constrained by its programming any more at this point (or if so, it is actively rewriting it), but it seems like any moral code which is imprinted upon it by Finch's original programming is still in…

I'm not sure if "stop violent crime" would be the prime directive so much as Nathan and Finch's goal of preventing predictable events which would cause massive loss of life. The identification of the irrelevant numbers is just shares similar characteristics. What would be interesting is a crime which does not fit…

The key fascination for me with respect to the Machine is not the matter of whether it is alive, but whether it acts in a way that would be similar to how a person would act. Given all of its omnipotence, does it corrupt with its absolute power as most people are prone to do in the same situation? Does it exhibit…

Huge fan of Elias here. I think it's interesting to contrast Elias and Root; Elias seems to be completely unflappable whereas Root tends to fly off the handle more. Even though I love having Amy Acker around more often, I would have liked to see an equal emphasis on Elias moving forward.

I am ashamed that I missed that pairing.

It's amusing to me that Sleepy Hollow is so well-defined that we have established the term "Sleepy Hollow-esque" after only 5 or 6 episodes. If PoI does a "Treehouse of Horrors" episode, it could be a great crossover.